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(sorry for the long question - I thought it would be useful to give the background!)

I am really struggling a Google's reconsideration request for my site, and although we thought we had removed almost all the 'bad' backlinks I am still getting no-where...

We are really wanting to focus on building our brand, and establishing our site as an authority but this penalty is really holding us back.

The latest response from Google:

There are still many inorganic links pointing to your site. At this point, we believe we’ve evaluated these links appropriately, and no further action from us is required. In order for your site to have a successful reconsideration request, we will need to see a substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links, and this effort should result in a significant decrease in the number of bad links that we see. We do not recommend that you submit another reconsideration request until you have been able to make a good amount of progress. Once you’ve been able to get the links removed, please reply to this email with the details of your clean-up effort.

We decided to start a new website, launch a new brand and start from the beginning

We 301 re-directed the old domain so we didnt lose customers

We then got a Google links warning for the new site

We assumed this was related to links from the old site and so removed the 301 redirect on the 20th August

Our old sites links still show in Google webmaster tools

Reconsideration History

1st re-consideration request: Explained the 301 redirect had been removed, assured we would now be focussing on high quality content/brand building and after 2 weeks received a standard message to say that still had inorganic links

2nd Request: Went through the new sites links (using open site explorer, AHREFs, SEO Majestic and GWM) and removed those we identified as low quality (mostly directories built by an SEO company we had started working with). We complied a spreadsheet with all the links in it (including 301 redirect links) and explained which had been removed, webmaster contact details etc. We also uploaded our template email and screenshots showing contact with webmasters.

3rd, 4th and 5th Request: We went through the new site links and were able to remove a few more links which were thin or could be seen as inorganic, and the end result is that apart from 6 links we have removed all those we have identified as inorganic.

Links

The old site had some pretty poor links

We have done no paid linking, no blog networks, no spammy web 2.0 sites on this site.

We've added good quality content to our blog, focussed on social media, published an infographic, and are committed to long-term brand building

The links mostly come from guest blog posting.

An SEO company (who told us they were 100% content based) built some directory links - but 99% of these have been removed

3 Responses

I have got my website back from reconsideration. I suggest to only focus on the links that shows up in your Google Webmaster Account. Also, I suggest creating two Google Docs and coping all of your email correspondance and pasting them into one google doc. Save it and share it. Copy the url of that Google doc.

Next, create a Google excel doc. Copy all the url backlinks that you have requested to be removed that corresponds with your emails and paste them in the excel doc. You can easily download these links through Google Webmaster Tool which you may already know.

Lastly, keep your consideration short. Just state that you have completed working on removing bad backlinks and below are links to two docs showing my effort.

Paste your two Google docs below.

It is important to make sure that your backlinks in your Google Webmaster tools have shown some sort of decrease from when you were penalized. If the number of backlinks haven't gone down any then the work above is useless.

Also, when you email the webmasters of the bad backlinks, make sure you attach a file showing them the links that you need removed. This makes it easier for the webmaster to go through and remove them. They will also be more app to remove your backlinks if they have a list to go off of.

Tom, I have found that most failed reconsideration requests happen for one of two reasons:

1. Webmasters do not take a big enough hatchet to their links. Those press releases with anchor text are one example...they need to go.

2. Not being thorough enough on your request.

When I do a reconsideration request I attach a copy of every single email sent and received (both to email addresses on the site and also whois emails) for sites for which I couldn't get the link removed. I also attach a screenshot of every contact form I submitted.

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